Understand built-in project filters

In this video, you will learn how to review built-in project filters to see how they’re built, and how to create your own project filter using what you’ve learned. Why is it important to understand how a filter is set up, and what the filter is showing you? Here are some reasons. To understand what the filter does. And why the results are showing in the list. And to help identify why something isn’t showing up in the results list. You might think projects I own shows you projects where you’re the project owner, while projects I’m on shows projects where you’re on the project team. As you’ll see, there’s more to it than that. The only way you can really know how a filter is designed to work is to open it up and take a look. Let’s start with projects I own. It’s a simple filter with only one filter rule, to only show projects where the logged in user is the owner. It’s important to note that this filter does not take the project status into account. With the projects I own filter, you will see all statuses of project, including completed projects and dead projects. Now let’s take a look at projects I’m on.

You notice right away that there are four filter rules, all of which are or filters. This means that any project that meets any of these four conditions appears in your project list. The first filter rule checks the project user’s list for the ID of the logged in user. Project users is a list of all work front users assigned to a project, whether they are the project owner or someone assigned to only one task. This is also referred to as the project team. The second filter rule checks the entered by ID. This is the idea of the user who created the project. The third filter rule makes you see all the projects when you’re the project sponsor. And the fourth filter rule makes sure you see all of the projects where you’re the project owner. Again, we can see this filter does not filter by status. You will see all projects, not just those that are current. Finally, take a look at the active filter. What does it mean for a project to be active? According to this filter, it means the project has a status that equates with current, planning, or approved. What if your organization has a different definition of active? If you’re a system administrator, you can remove a built-in filter from the filter list and replace it with one of your own. For example, at your organization, you want the active filter to only show projects in a current or planning status. Start by editing the built-in status, so it has the current and planning statuses. Then save it by clicking the save as new filter button. You’ll need to provide a new name. Active 2 will work nicely.

Now that you’ve created the filter, you can share it with users through the list controls. Go to Setup, Interface, List Controls.

Select project as the object type, then delete the built-in active filter. Now don’t worry, you’re just deleting it from the list everyone sees, not from the system. You can easily get it back if you want. Click add filter, then search for active. The active filter you just deleted is here, as well as the one you created and named Active 2. Click the plus sign to select it, then select save.

Here it is in the list. Now click save again and go back to the projects list.

We see Active 2, but not the old active filter. Since Active 2 is ours, we can edit the name and change it to Active.

Now everyone in your organization can use your new version of the Active projects filter. By knowing how a filter is built, you can decide if it’s meeting your needs. If you want to change a built in-filter, simply make some edits and save it as your own custom filter. -